5 YEARS AGO: Bisping takes shots at Chael Sonnen in lead up to their Middleweight Division no. 1 contendership fight

By Jamie Penick, MMATorch editor-in-chief

Five years ago today, Mihael Bisping began taking shots at Chael Sonnen – who lost to Tito Ortiz last night at Bellator 170 – once he was booked to face him as a replacement opponent for the injured Mark Munoz.

Michael Bisping is getting a shot at becoming the number one contender in the UFC’s Middleweight Division next week, stepping up to fight Chael Sonnen at UFC on Fox 2 for an injured Mark Munoz. The talk between the two began a bit tepid, then Sonnen took a jab at Bisping by calling him Pip from the early seasons of South Park. That led Bisping to deliver the following response in an interview with ChicagoNow.com (transcribed by BJPenn.com):

“To be honest Chael Sonnen is a failed partisan and a failed politician. He also failed as being a champion because he had many times in the past to achieve that and didn’t succeed. Honestly, I would have expected something a bit better from him than just calling me Pip. He could have done a hell of a lot better and frankly I’m disappointed. He failed as a politician and his first insult was also a failure… I don’t think the words will be going back and forth like other fights because of the short amount of time we have. We were supposed to do the Ultimate Fighter together and that would have probably caused a nice stir of on-screen drama, but we still have a week… The thing is he thinks he’s going to win and I know that I’m going to win, which makes this fight that much more enjoyable. Sonnen is a world class fighter and with a title shot on the line, what else would you want to see? This is a fight that you don’t want to miss and forget all the trash talk, just watch the fight next Saturday.”